Law
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Ilaws
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End
lAge
Christianity is more than a system of rituals or mere outward conformity to a
set of rules. Christianity, in practice, is a new relationship between a sinful
person and the God.who created and sustains him. Jesus Christ is the direct link
between God and man, by His incarnation. He also became the Substitute
and Surety (Pledge, Guarantee) for the sinful race.
Sinful men may enter a new-covenant relationship with God by faith in the
Substitute and by continual cooperation with the Surety. Christ takes our sins
and gives us His righteousness. We receive it in two ways. In Him we are
accounted righteous and remain so as long as we maintain our absolute depen-
dence upon Him and His merits. He also enters into a living relationship with us
whereby the Holy Spirit brings about a new-birth experience in our hearts and
minds and writes the laws of God, as the inward law, upon the fleshy tables of our
hearts. (See Heb. 10:16.) From and by this inward law all of life is shaped for the
believer. He wills to work out what God puts within.
In our lessons of this quarter we will concentrate upon the inward law and its
outworking in our individual lives. But it is vital that we recognize throughout
this study that the outworking of the inward law does nothing toward earning our
salvation. There is no question of deserving salvation.
Our acceptance with God is already secure in Jesus Christ. "Ye are complete
in Him" (Col. 2:10). What the Father thinks of Christ makes us acceptable, in
Him, to God. Let us remember that this law is implanted in the heart by God
when we accept "Jesus only" as our righteousness. By the power of the Holy
Spirit, bringing resurrection power into our lives—the same power within Him-
self by which Jesus rose from the dead—the inward law becomes the motivation
and the direction of our lives. In essence it is the implanting of the Ten Com-
mandments in the wellsprings of our thoughts and actions.
That Ten Commandment law is the expression of the character of God in
human terms fitting our human situation. Hence it is the law of love, for God is
love. This law of love is likewise the law of life—the life of God in us. So we blend
the three elements in the title of the lessons of this quarter—Law, Love, and
Life. Our Saviour becomes the pledge of the fulfillment of all three in our
standing with God and in our daily experience with God and man.
Basic to human nature and universal in its application is God's law of love,
which transcends all cultures, customs, socioeconomic classes, ages, races,
nationalities, time, and geographical locations. It makes Christianity a religion,
not of the East or of the West, but of the whole world. A believer from any nation
does have to accept Jesus Christ as his Saviour and open his heart to the Holy
Spirit.
From the individual and human viewpoint there can be no objective values
despite the claims of moral philosophers. At a time when "there was no king in
Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25), and
still he does today. But if the standard of goodness is given by God, who is
absolutely objective, then the establishment of a universally objective law is not
only possible but sure.
Man's law is enforced by government officers. Sentence passed on the con-
victed is frequently based upon incomplete evidence. But God's law is enforced
by (1) man's own conscience, (2) by God's direct, redeeming intervention, and
(3) by natural events following the laws of cause and effect. Man's law can only
deter crime, but God's law inspires virtue. In God's court there is perfect justice.
Here the attorney-at-law would have no advantage over the accused, for each is
convicted by his conscience and judged by his own inward law enlightened by
the law of love and grace. Before God's perfect law all are condemned. Only an
Omnipresent and Omniscient God qualifies as the judge, for He alone can
discern the true motive of each action.
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